Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Singing Fish
Success has many parents and, it appears, a number of vigorous children. The Maccabeats YouTube success at Hanukkah has spawned a whole cottage industry of Jewish videos.
The latest of them is the offspring of Dreamworks (not officially) and Chabad (not officially) and is not, thankfully, an exposition of a minor festival but a celebration of the spiciness of sephardi culture.
Starring Matisyahu’s son as a small boy in a shopping cart, directed by Larry Guterman of “Antz” and written by Chaim Marcus of Chabad’s “To Life” telethon, Ya’alili by 8th Day (as in “On the seventh day Hashem rested and on the eighth day He created music videos”) is a bi-cultural romp through a supermarket whose gender balance reflects no actual store in existence.
But, despite that unpromising premise, it’s a lot of fun, with high production values, charif, gefilte and singing fish, body popping, ouds aplenty and enough Yiddish, Hebrew and Yeshivish to keep Philologos happy for weeks.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture The secret Jewish history of Alcatraz
-
Fast Forward These Jewish arts organizations have been defunded by the Trump administration
-
Fast Forward Dave Portnoy revokes Auschwitz trip for student who said ‘F– the Jews’
-
Fast Forward Mosab Abu Toha, Palestinian writer targeted by far-right pro-Israel activists, wins Pulitzer for commentary
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.